Category: Buddhism & Zen

I learned this proverb from my book of Korean aphorisms.

십년공부 나무아미타불
sip.nyeon.gong.bu na.mu.a.mi.ta.bul
ten-years-study “namo amitabha buddha”
[After] ten years of study, [one is reduced to saying] “Namo Amitabha Buddha.”

This is an interesting Korean proverb, because although the proverb itself is Korean in origin as far as I can figure out, the phrase “Namo Amitabha Buddha” (rendered as namuamitabul) is Pali (the language of Buddhist scripture), filtered through Chinese.
The phrase “Namo Amitabha Buddha” is an invocation of the Amitabha Buddha, which under the Pure Land tradation (“Amidism”) within Buddhism, frees the invoker of his or her karmic hinderances.
The meaning of the proverb, however, is about the phenomenon of Buddhist monks who become enchanted by secular women, apparently a commonplace in the Korean folk tradition. So the monks would chant “Namo Amitabha Buddha” in an attempt to escape such enchantments, but the point of the proverb is that they are trying to escape the earned consequences of their own behavior. There is a specific story where a monk studied for 10 years and then fell for a dancing girl. So after 10 years of study, all is come to naught. The proverb roughly means “All in vain!
This proverb is exceptionally apropos, as I approach the 10th year anniversary of my sojourn in Korea, and yet, due to my own laziness and poor behavior, I still have failed to really master the Korean language: ¡십년공부 나무아미타불!
[daily log: walking, 7km]

I found this aphorism in my Korean-English Buddhism dictionary. Most of the aphorisms there are embedded in the articles, and are of Chinese origin (since that is the language of Buddhist scholarship in Korea for the most part). This makes them doubly hard to make sense of, and mostly I just go with whatever explanation is given, without trying to puzzle out the etymology.
남아도처시고향 (男兒到處是故鄕)
I found this explanation: 남아가 가는 곳 마다 고향인데, which (very roughly) seems to mean “every place is your hometown.”
I like the sentiment of this. There is an English aphorism that I think it was my uncle used to say: “Home is where you hang your hat.” I think this is similar.
[daily log: walking, 6 km]

This is an aphorism from my aphorism book.

부처님 위하여 불공하나
bu.cheo.nim wi.ha.yeo bul.gong.ha.na
Buddha benefit-INF hold-ceremony-INTERROG
Do [you] hold a ceremony for the Buddha?

The meaning, according to the book, is that people may pretend to work for their employers but in fact are only looking out for themselves. However, the literal meaning of the phrase is merely, “hold a ceremony for the Buddha” – the bad faith of those holding the ceremony is taken as a given implied by the question, which grammatically is what is called a “mild interrogative” but the -나 ending also has an “adversative” meaning, i.e. an implied “but….”
This seems to reflect the category of the old, institutionalized anti-Buddhist sentiment that was one of the ideological productions of the Choson era and which underlies, in my opinion, the success of evangelical Christianity in modern Korea.
[daily log: walking in the rain, 6 km]

I ran across this in my Dictionary of Buddhist Terms.

絶學無憂
절학무우
jeol·hak·mu·u
stop-study-no-worry
Stop studying and be happy.

Somewhat related to “Ignorance is bliss.”

This phrase is apparently from the Tao Te Ching (도덕경 [dodeokgyeong] in Korean). A lot of Taoist aphorisms and concepts were incorporated into Chinese Buddhism, as Buddhism spread into China from India (via the ancient Indo-Greek civilization of the Indus valley and Afghanistan and the Kushan Empire). Hence also they ended up forming a part of the Korean Buddhist heritage. Taoism is not really practiced in Korea separate from those elements that it loaned to Confucianism and Buddhism, but no less an item than the Korean nationalist flag incorporates Taoist symbolism.

[daily log: walking, 5 km]